It is obvious that truth in general depends on both language and extra-linguistic fact. The statement 'Brutus killed Caesar' would be false if the world had been different in certain ways, but it would also be false if the word 'killed' happened rather to have the sense of 'begat'. Thus one is tempted to suppose in general that the truth of a statement is somehow analysable into a linguistic component and a factual component. Given this supposition it next seems reasonable that in some statements the factual component should be null and that these are the analytic statements. But for all its a priori reasonableness, a boundary between the analytic and synthetic statements simply has not been drawn. That there is such a distinction to be drawn at all is an unempirical dogma of empiricists, a metaphysical article of faith.
More Quotes from Willard Van Orman Quine:
Language is conceived in sin and science is its redemption.Willard Van Orman Quine
Language is a social art.
Willard Van Orman Quine
'Ouch' is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word.
Willard Van Orman Quine
Just as the introduction of the irrational numbers ... is a convenient myth which simplifies the laws of arithmetic ... so physical objects are postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux of existence... The conceptional scheme of physical objects is likewise a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part.
Willard Van Orman Quine
To be is to be the value of a variable.
Willard Van Orman Quine
Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word.
Willard Van Orman Quine
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Based on Topics: Belief & Faith Quotes, Facts Quotes, Metaphysics Quotes, Sense & Perception Quotes, Truth Quotes, World QuotesBased on Keywords: analytic, begat, brutus, empiricists, null, priori, reasonableness, supposition, synthetic
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